


Playing house

by Howling_Harpy



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Bastogne, Denial of Feelings, Flirting, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25401526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howling_Harpy/pseuds/Howling_Harpy
Summary: Dick leads by example, and in the freezing death trap that is Bastogne, Lewis decides he could use some cheering up. He's only joking, of course.
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88





	Playing house

**Author's Note:**

> That scene in The Breaking Point where Nix goes with the news about the furlough home to meet Dick, who greets him with a joke about "eviction notice" gave me a headcanon that throughout Bastogne Nix and Dick had a running joke of living together going between them. So here's a fic about that.

The icy wind blowing through Bastogne felt like it was laughing at them when Easy company took positions and tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible with the nothing that they had. Lewis had a gnawing feeling that the biting wind and the nothing was about to become their new normal. Still, when they were stacking sandbags and pulling a tarp over some branches to create some shelter, he grinned at Dick and joked: “When I imagined our first house, I had something else in mind.”

Dick was both pale and red from the cold and focused on braving the storm, but Lewis quip pulled him out of it. His eyes widened for a second before he got the joke and grinned back. “Oh? What did you have in mind, then?”

Lewis smiled even with rope biting into his hands as he pulled the tarp taut. “Oh, you know, the usual. A bedroom, two guest rooms, a big kitchen and a lawn. Something safe and simple.”

“Yeah?” Dick hummed, tying a knot on his end. “I’m sorry that running away with me like this has brought us to this point. The house is certainly smaller and a bit drafty, but let me fix the leak in the ceiling and I’m sure you’ll feel right at home, dear.” 

Lewis laughed, they finished their pitiful command post and parted ways to continue the endless work the battalion was burdened with. 

Bastogne might not have been hell, but Lewis looked for a road sign placing it pretty close to them anyway. He sent out scouts and walked the line himself whenever he could. As the S3 Lewis was ready to sign the old saying that knowledge increased pain, as probably no one knew better than him how bad it all was while also being that close to the middle of it. Partially that was precisely why he spent so much time at the battalion command post.

“Honey, I’m home!” he called as the swooped in under the tarp. “I see you have prepared dinner, what a good wife!” he joked when Dick offered him watery soup he had made of his rations in the lid of his canteen, and it was all worth it when Dick smiled. 

Lewis knew his friend well enough to tell that he wasn’t faring as well as he was pretending to, and at times it felt like Lewis’ most important mission was to cheer him up. Dick was pulling his fearless leader stunt, and as the fog thickened, supplies ran low, the enemy creeped in and the frost settled in, Lewis watched him doing his best performance. He couldn’t imagine Dick cracking, but then again he hadn’t been able to imagine Bastogne beforehand either, so what logically followed was that Lewis should consider the unthinkable as well. He didn’t much like the possibility, and if keeping this playing house-joke running made Dick smile and sometimes even chuckle, Lewis would keep it up.

One day Lewis was for a moment sure he was witnessing the unthinkable when he walked in on Dick standing by the CP shirtless, but then he spotted the basin and the washcloth and relaxed. A part of him definitely wanted to call the lengths Dick’s leadership by example went to madness, but if there was a reason then it wasn’t the unravelling kind of crazy. 

“Oh, god, what will the neighbours think?” Lewis gasped in his best scandalized voice when he approached. 

Dick was shivering, but still he dipped the cloth in the basin and wiped down his chest and arms. “Just flirting with the milkman since you work so late,” he deadpanned, and Lewis sighed internally in relief. 

“How shameless,” he huffed and settled at his feet to smoke. 

Once when Lewis wandered to the CP around two in the morning, Dick was waiting for him. “Welcome home, honey,” he quipped by the smallest flame Lewis had ever seen and picked up a tin mug of tea he had heated up on it. 

Lewis dropped by his side and accepted the mug with a thankful nod.

Dick looked at him with a playfully scorning expression. “Pray tell, where have you been? It’s way too late and I stayed up waiting on you. Do you have some other woman?”

Lewis huffed through a weak smile and took a sip from the mug. “Yeah, you got me. I’m having an affair. It’s just that I couldn’t find the way to my mistress in this fog.”

Dick read the grim report between the lines and nodded, growing serious for a moment before turning to joking again. “Well, I can’t say I’m too sorry about you wandering back to our bed.”

Lewis grinned even though he wasn’t in a playful mood in the least. “Oh, dear, my loving might be loose, but you’re still the one I married.”

Dick went still and quiet at that, and Lewis feared he had come across too sincere when that was something both of them had carefully avoided. He forced himself to laugh and forcibly break the tension, and the moment dissolved into their running joke.

The situation in Bastogne didn’t let up, but vice versa. Every day it was slightly worse, tension was running high and felt more crushing by each day without any real development. On one hand, Lewis’ job was easy because he could just point to any direction and there the enemy would be, but on the other hand that was a fucking terrible situation to be in so there wasn’t any joy in easy. 

Lewis stood by and watched as Dick suffered the consequences of his principles and ate water and a few beans for his Christmas dinner. Lewis had run by the division HQ and knew very well what they were having up there, and it had nothing to do with honour rules such as “the command eats last”. Still, he wouldn’t have picked any other place to be than under the tarp with Dick. 

“I think I’m going to paint the house,” Lewis said when the depressing silence of the holy night got too much. “Yep. It’s going to be blue and so fine that all the neighbours are envious of you for having such a great husband who gives you a beautiful home. Also, I’ll get you matching curtains and then we’ll renovate the kitchen together. We need to let more light in and make room for a decent table, so that every day we can have a home-cooked dinner together in sunlight.” 

“And Sunday feasts too,” Dick added, a little too seriously for a flippant joke.

Lewis couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes. He had just been vexing ideas and throwing lines, not meaning anything special, and suddenly he felt like he was about to have his words held against him. 

When he didn’t say anything, Dick continued: “I have a confession to make.”

Lewis felt his heart hiccupping, and after a too long silence realized that Dick was waiting for him to look up.

Their eyes met over the small flame in the burner, way too serious and wide open. Lewis wanted to break out in a grin and blow the tension off, but couldn’t remember how to make it happen. All he could do was stare helplessly at Dick, who opened his mouth and got ready to say something real. They froze in the moment, and Lewis witnessed Dick Winters hesitating. 

Dick studied Lewis’ face and licked his chapped lips. Something shifted in his gaze, he gave a small shake of his head and settled on saying: “I’m not a very good cook.”

Lewis accepted the meek comment and felt both relieved and disappointed. “That’s alright, dear. That’s not why I married you.”

Dick smiled, way too moved by such a throwaway line. “What a sweet husband you are.”

Even though he hadn’t said much, his tender smile and the sincerity in his voice made Lewis feel indebted somehow. “To a perfect husband like you, what else could I be?” he said to pay it off. 

Lewis half-hoped that the snow piled up around them would have swallowed his words, but they sat too close together for that to be possible. Dick glanced to him and Lewis looked back, and in a second they shared one of their silent conversations they had always been able to have. Dick smiled, really smiled, and then averted his eyes, looking almost coy. 

It was too much. It was all entirely, absolutely too much, but on the edges of hell it didn’t really matter. Silence fell again, this time charged instead of heavy, and neither of them felt the need to break it any time soon. Lewis was left to his own thoughts, and he had a creeping feeling he hadn’t joked as much as he had promised.


End file.
